


The One With The Mask

by Paint_Stained_Heart



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky and his mask, Corona Virus - Freeform, Depression men can sew, Gen, M/M, PTSD, Post-TWS, Quarantine, Stark Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 07:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24347008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paint_Stained_Heart/pseuds/Paint_Stained_Heart
Summary: Bucky Barnes just wants to help. People are suffering. And he can't even get his damn mask on.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 8
Kudos: 109





	The One With The Mask

**Author's Note:**

> *This work has not been beta'd

If embarrassment is a hot, slimy thing, then Bucky Barnes is most certainly choking on it.

People are  _ dying.  _ Communities are starving. Toilet paper is being hoarded. Mas and pas can’t pay their rent. Kids are out of school. Grandmas can’t see their grandkids. Tony’s practically generating the electricity for the entire outdoor triage center they put up in Central Park.

There’s a goddamn  _ triage center  _ in  _ Central Park. _ In all his 101 years...

And James B. Barnes, brave war hero, soldier, _super_ soldier, who could carry caskets one-handed and whose perfect cells could fight off the virus indefinitely, is wearing down a path into the tile of his bathroom on the forty-second floor of the Stark Industries tower in Manhattan. His arm has been whirring in and out of Battle Mode all damn day as his neurons compete, _go_ and _stay_ , sending the arm’s advanced wiring both his fight and flight responses. 

Bucky curses as the arm  _ does it again _ , an inconvenient little psychosomatic trick that he’ll have to get Tony to fix when he gets back from Central Park… Bucky looks down from the window again, to the trimmed green lawn covered with medical personnel, hospital beds, IV drips, ambulances parked and treating people inside, the doors wide open.

That’s where they all are. Nat, Bruce. Sam, Thor. Tony. 

Steve.

God  _ damn  _ it.

Bucky’s fist collides with the mirror, which shatters into about a million pieces.

“Would you like me to order another one, sir?” comes the bodiless voice of JARVIS. Bucky grabs a fistful of hair with his good hand and bites back his curses. He’s not getting into a fight with AI. Tony’s already explained that JARVIS isn’t  _ real.  _ “He seems real to me,” Steve had grumbled, arms crossed and pouting when JARVIS had politely asked him to stop eating ice cream one night before PT. Bucky had aggressively agreed. 

On the bathroom counter, beside the weird toothbrush cup holder thing that Steve bought them to feel  _ coupley,  _ is a mask. A very generously donated, high-quality, breathable, form-fitting mask. Because even though Bucky can’t die from the coronavirus, he can certainly spread it, which would sort of undermine the whole triage-center-in-Central-Park thing in the first place. He knows exactly who’s dying out there in that park -- it’s the elderly, the olds, the ones who just might remember what 1941 was like. How it felt to see them planes make ash and dust of Pearl Harbor. Who remember buying a loaf of bread for a nickel, putting newspaper in their shoes, that sorta thing. And in all his time in intense in and outpatient psychotherapy, he hasn’t had a chance to give back. To  _ fight  _ back. It seems every mission’s got red tape for him; this one’s too violent, Buck. Bustin’ up a Russian drug ring might be triggering for you, Barnes. There’s a lot of metros in Paris, you might get claustrophobic. You ain’t got the hang of that arm tech just yet, pal. Next time. Next time, next time, next time. 

And of course, because God is cruel, Iron Man himself had greenlit  _ this _ one. Of all the missions to go on active duty for.

“Mr. Barnes?” Pepper had asked, her face stoic and her hair pulled back in a tight blonde bun. Her eyes looked strained, with deep bags under what were usually very beautiful blue eyes. 

It was her city, too.

“Mmf,” he’d grumbled. She’d caught him mid-sip of coffee in the training lab, his chest still heaving slightly from the rather tactless things he just did to his third punching bag that morning.

“Tony says they need more manpower down in Central Park. He says-” and her eyes went soft here, and Bucky felt her pity wash over him, getting queasy, “-- he says, New York’s yours. JARVIS, please tell Mr. Barnes where he can find his mission detail.”

“Loading,” boomed the bodiless voice. There was a  _ ping  _ sound, followed by a hologram appearing out of seemingly thin air. Pepper made no sign that she was at all uncomfortable, and Bucky wondered for fuck’s sake when he’d get used to this century.

In front of Bucky, in the hologram, was, well, himself. A rotating, 3D version of him, at least, with his ‘suit.’ The Avengers weren’t going out in full gear, of course, just a few basic weapons in the case of a rogue civilian (read: angry white terrorist with a gun and possibly Make America Great Again attire). Rather, the gear in the hologram was waning toward the PPE that Bucky had seen doctors wear in  _ Grey’s.  _ Gloves. Smocks. 

Masks.

He pushed past her and stalked off without another word.

It’s been thirty-three and a half minutes, and Bucky is still pacing in his bathroom like an idiot. The black mask makes him want to retch into the toilet. It makes a stuffy cotton feeling in his chest start to expand, like someone is filling his arteries until his heart explodes, which seems likely, considering he can feel the pulse in his fucking ears. It hurts that Tony oversaw this little flaw. It  _ kills him  _ that Steve oversaw it. Bucky knows Steve is busy -- when there’s a crisis, when innocent lives are on the line, Steve’s got zeroed in, eagle-like focus. 

But didn’t… didn’t  _ one  _ person think that Bucky might not be okay with this?

His heart rate starts escalating, his breathing getting shallower and shallower, his mouth dry. Don’t look at the mask. Don’t look at the mask. It’s just a mask. Just fabric. He’s not the Winter Soldier. He doesn’t do that anymore. He hasn’t had a relapse in… three months? He’s not that man. He’s not that monster. He’s not  _ their  _ monster. He is kind. He has learned things like  _ cuddling  _ and  _ yo mama jokes.  _ He has learned about  _ cat videos _ and  _ baking.  _ He’s done yoga with a Norse God for Christ’s sake. He can wear a goddamn mask that a little old lady from the Museum of Jewish Heritage made for all of the Avengers. With her little sewing machine, and her little old hands… 

A sob that has no right to be there rips its way out of his chest, surprising him.

“NO!” he shouts, locking eyes with the tear-streaked idiot whose face is red and blotchy and tense in the mirror across from him. He is tired of living in a bathroom with so many mirrors. How many does one have to shatter before they don’t have to look into their own goddamn face? “I’M NOT DANGEROUS.”

His meltdown is swiftly interrupted by a banging on the bathroom door that he’d, by the grace of God, had the wherewithal to lock before he started angry crying and pointing accusational fingers at a piece of fabric. 

“Buck?”

Shit.

“Buck, you in there? Can I come in? Please.”

The question is rhetorical; Bucky has a hunch that if he doesn’t answer the request in three seconds, the star spangled man himself will break down their bathroom door, to the disconcerting voice of JARVIS asking if they’d  _ like to order another one. _

“Just-” Bucky starts, buying himself time. He doesn’t know what he wants to say. He is torn, as he always is, as his fucked-up wiring makes him, between  _ go away  _ and  _ come here. _ Between _ love me  _ and  _ leave me _ . Between trying to be the hero Steve knows him to be or letting himself become the careless prick HYDRA made him. Bucky has known war since he was eighteen, and he hasn’t been discharged since. Now, he just gets to enjoy the warring sides of himself, as actual war -- not the kind a 1940s soldier would recognize, but war nonetheless -- takes place in the very streets of New York he was once trying to protect.

He heaves a giant, super-sized sigh. Might as well let the fucker see how pathetic he is. 

He unlocks the bathroom door and sits on the closed lid of the toilet, still dressed in the joggers and maroon sweatshirt that Pepper had caught him in this morning. Steve should have heard the click of the lock. Bucky waits.

The door inches open real slow. Tiny, soft movements. Things two war-torn, PTSD-ridden soldiers do for each other. 

Steve looks like hell. He don’t need sleep like regular folk, but he certainly still manages to present as tired, disheveled, and slightly manic. The adrenaline from the triage center clearly hasn’t worn off yet -- in fact, the red, white and blue mask he’d been adorning is still around his neck, and some kind of wet stain on the right arm of his T-shirt suggests things have been a bit messy down there. He’s come back for a shower, a quick meal (just coffee, probably; Steve’s favorite invention this side of 2000 is definitely the Keurig) and restock of supplies that Tony’s shipped in here, plus some confidential updates for Pepper which he’d rather not text over. He doesn’t have time in his schedule today for a whimpering, triggered, broken toy soldier who can’t look at a fabric mask without punching at least one mirror, Bucky concludes, already calculating how he’s going to explain away this little episode to soothe Steve’s worries and let him get on with saving people.

“Talk to me,” Steve whispers. “Talk me through what’s going on.”

Bucky gulps, the threads of the story he was trying to weave falling back to shreds. Instead, he swallows deeply and points a metallic finger at the mask on the counter. He chokes out one word: “Can’t.”

“Aw, hell.”

Steve, moving slow and cautious like he’s just found himself on the wrong side of the glass at the lion exhibit in the Brooklyn Zoo, picks up the black mask off the counter and stuffs it in his pocket. Out of sight; a good first step, Bucky’s brain acknowledges somewhere in the background. Without meaning to, Bucky nods jerkily.  _ Thank you. _ It seems to give Steve reassurance, or brashness, and he moves in front of Bucky and squats down. Bucky closes his eyes, but a big American hand comes down gently on his right shoulder. The weight is comforting. He can feel Steve’s strength buzzing beneath that hand, the sheer force behind it. Like a golden retriever able to carry a baby bird in its jowls, Bucky can  _ sense  _ the power in that hand, and its equally powerful will to be gentle. To be kind.

“We can do an exercise,” Steve says, leaving the decision-making up to Bucky. Not taking his power or choice away. They do joint therapy. Steve takes copious notes. “The breathing one? The senses one?”

“Steve,” Bucky finally articulates, gray eyes opening, falling on a crouched, tired Steve Rogers with a fiercely bright second wind behind his own blue eyes. “‘S not fair to the civilians. You gotta get back out there. I’ll be fine.”

“I ain’t Rogers, MD. They’ll get on without me. I’ve just been managing the deli deliveries for all the front line workers for the past two hours, anyway. You’d think during a pandemic, people wouldn’t care so much about everything bagels and mustard vs. mayo, but…”

“New York’s New York,” Bucky finished, an almost-laugh  _ huff  _ escaping his lips. He wiped his eyes.

“What’s wrong, Bucky?”

“I can’t do the mask, Steve. Even Stark gave me the all-clear to help with this one, and I just… I  _ can’t _ . I look at it, and I can’t  _ breathe. _ I see sparks, Steve. I feel the  _ clicks  _ of the chair, the walls closin’ in...”

Steve’s hand starts moving in rhythmic circles on Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky does nothing to stop him.

“But I wanna get  _ out there.  _ I can literally see the people suffering from our bedroom window in a New York City highrise. A robot--”

“Artificial intelligence,” JARVIS corrects.

“-- _ a fucking  _ robot keeps interrupting me. I am soaked in privilege and can’t even climb into an elevator to go downstairs and help people in need. When I’m  _ immune _ .”

Steve eyes him carefully, probably biting back something about Bucky being  _ soaked _ in privilege. Someone with that much torture  _ on file  _ probably never quite joins the ranks of the ‘privilged’ again. But Steve also probably knows what he means. Stark’s sleek, high-tech,  _ expensive  _ tower is a lot for two broken Brooklyn boys who can’t say they’ve never snatched leftover Chinese takeout from a garbage can and split it between them, using shoeboxes for plates. Tony doesn’t exactly live… mildly. The juxtaposition, as bus drivers and nurses and the elderly and poor people and black people and Native people are  _ dying _ while their bathtub has personalized jet settings is… uncomfortable.

He knows Steve’s been trying to get them out of here for a while. Somewhere quieter. A brownstone in DC, maybe. But no one really wants to see Tony pull the  _ he’s not ready  _ card. They’ve already seen how well  _ that  _ conversation goes.

“I just… need to… I dunno, Steve, I just need to get the hell  _ over _ it. Gimme the damn mask,” Bucky concedes, stretching out his metal arm for the mask, then regretting it as the vibranium shone under the harsh bathroom lights.

“I don’t think so,” Steve replies, jaw hardening and blue eyes flattening. That was a  _ no _ if Bucky’d ever seen one. Steve Rogers putting his foot down hadn’t changed since 1932.

Bucky starts arguing, automatic, a half-hearted ‘but’ on his lips, when Steve’s face starts glowing, his eyes taking on a bizarre excitement that Bucky usually only sees when Steve finally decides what to do with a blank canvas he’s been staring down for days.

“What?” Bucky snaps, irritated. “If you’re gonna look at me like that, ‘least spit it out.”

“You still remember how to sew?” 

Bucky rolls his eyes. “You think my ma, queen of the Brooklyn garment district, God rest her soul, didn’t teach me right? Hydra wiped a lot of shit, Steve, but c’mon. How many times I mend your Army reg pants?”

“Bingo,” replies Steve, mischievously. Oh. Ah, jeez. No.  _ No.  _ “Buck… you got a skill. The people need masks. Bruce still has all that extra fabric downstairs for when Trump first got elected and he started exploding out of his clothes every day.”

“You want me to  _ sew  _ instead of  _ help people _ ?” Bucky asks, incredulous, and eyeing one of the still-intact mirrors as his metal hand flexes into a fist. The itch is always there. Steve’s eyes snap immediately down to it. Always on guard. Never quite relaxed with his serial killer ghost of New York past. “I hear that right, Rogers?”

Steve softens. “Buck. I wish you could see that this project  _ is  _ helping people. All these normal people without powers, delivering groceries, walking doctors’ dogs, working despite havin’ asthma -- they’re all at risk. High risk. Imagine me goin’ around before the serum--”

Bucky shudders. Now that’s a thought he just won’t tolerate.

“Steven-”

“Imagine makin’ masks for kids like me, Bucky.”

Bucky’s eyes water. Steve’s do, too. They are thinking of cold winters and shivering bones. Of beans and potatoes for the third time that week. Of chilling drafts getting under the windows they jammed with old rags, and of chilling draft papers that sat open on the kitchen table for a week before anyone could say anything about it. Bucky can hear Steve’s 1940 cough like he’s got it memorized.

“Okay,” Bucky whispers, grabbing hold of Steve’s hands. They stand up together, Bucky from his perch on their toilet seat, Steve straightening his knees to stand with him. With the lightest pressure, Steve’s lips brush Bucky’s temple.

And now, knowing Bucky is okay, seeing the tension fall out of his shoulders and the tightness ease up around his eyes, he must deem it safe to show the true extent of his exhaustion, and practically collapses into Bucky’s arms.


End file.
